In a discussion about standards of a 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) EDDA (enhancement on diverse data applications) WI (work item), it is agreed that a UE (user equipment) may send an indication about a UE power consumption preference (power preference indication) to an eNB (evolved NodeB). For example, when a screen of the UE is closed, the UE wishes to work in a more power-saving state, and therefore may request to acquire a more power-saving configuration from the eNB; when the UE wishes to recover to a default state, that is, a state that may ensure QoS (quality of service) requirements of the UE, the UE may request to return to the default state of the UE, and acquire configuration parameters that ensure QoS requirements, from the eNB.
In addition, the power consumption preference indication may be further defined as an indication for requesting “higher/lower” power consumption. For example, when the UE is not satisfied with a current DRX (discontinuous reception) configuration, the UE may request a configuration of lower power consumption, that is, send an indication whose value is “lower” to the eNB; and conversely, if the UE wishes to have better user experience and does not care about power consumption, the UE may send an indication whose value is “higher” to the eNB. The “higher” or “lower” is a relative concept, that is, the UE may continuously request “higher” power consumption or continuously request “lower” power consumption.
To restrict frequent sending of the power consumption preference indication, which may otherwise cause an unnecessary signaling overhead and increase power consumption of the UE, the prior art provides some restriction mechanisms, one of which is a timer-based restriction mechanism. The mechanism includes: after the UE sends a power consumption preference indication (indication for requesting “higher/lower” power consumption), starting a preset timer, and sending the power consumption preference indication again only when the timer expires.
The UE power consumption preference indication may be a request for power optimization (that is, extending a DRX cycle and reducing power consumption), and may also be a request for improving performance (that is, shortening a DRX cycle, and improving performance by sacrificing power consumption, increasing power consumption). As may be seen from the two requests, the request for improving performance of the UE is more urgent than the request for power optimization. Otherwise, if the request for improving performance cannot be satisfied quickly, user experience may deteriorate.